Microsoft Office 2008 is a prime example of Microsoft taking the proven Mac way of doing things and trying to make it better. At this task, they have failed, and what results is a mess of Microsoft thinking on a Mac framework.

The first thing that I noticed is the toolbar, which indeed mimics the standard Leopard toolbar, but is actually Microsoft’s implementation of it and as such the look just isn’t the same. This make Office stand out amongst other Mac applications, and I have absolutely no idea why Microsoft couldn’t just use the standard toolbar. These little user interface inconsistencies are one of the reasons I left the Windows platform, yet Microsoft has again felt the need to make things that little bit different.

The second most annoying thing I have come across are the useless and absurd effects applied across the UI, especially in the Mac equivalent of the ribbon from Office 07. Every click on any element in this area triggers transition effects, and while they might look pretty the first time you see them, it adds a significant amount of time to navigate around and find things in the applications. These effects extend to most of the UI, and even the small view change icons in the lower left-hand corner of the windows glimmer and blink when you point at them. Why?

The design of the Preferences window also bugs me, albeit to a lesser extent. The window pointlessly attempts to mimic the Mac OS System Preferences window, and this really just makes accessing preferences cumbersome and slow – why can the preference windows not look like they do on every other Mac application?

In any event, these UI-level problems aren’t completely deal-breakers, and I am yet to really evaluate the Office 08 applications for their intended purposes. Word is my most used Office application and I will be using the new version to put together my next review, so time will tell if it is good enough to drag me away from Pages.